Hero Predictions

Most Picked Hero: Sand King. Sand King. One thousand times, Sand King! Ol’ Scorpio was very popular across all regions, and was first-pick material in the west. This is possibly the easiest pick in the entire compendium.

Also consider: None

Most Banned Hero: In another bit of a no-brainer, Night Stalker is the go-to for most-banned. He isn’t as much of a slam dunk as Sand King since the meta could shift during TI7, but he’s still an annoying roamer and ganker that most pros just don’t want to bother with.

Also consider: Io

Hero with Highest Win Rate: And now things start getting difficult! The minimum being set at five games opens the doors for various pocket picks getting grabbed five times, winning four, and locking up an 800-point clinching performance. Lots of niche heroes could fall into this, but this writer is going with Beast Master.

Also consider: Io, Zeus, Broodmother, many others

Hero with Highest Kill Average: This one has the same pitfalls as the last category. Fringe core heroes will get picked just a handful of times, have success and run away with this category! Slark is as good a pick as any, but there are plenty of other valid options out there.

Also consider: Templar Assassin, Lina, Storm Spirit

Hero with Highest Assist Average: This one is exceptionally hard to pick because of the massive hero pool, and the many, many ways assists can be racked up. Could Zeus’ Static Field carry the day? Could heroes that often pick up Radiance take the category? Could Necrophos get picked enough to steal it with Heartstopper Aura? Maybe! But our pick goes to Bounty Hunter, whose Track mechanics help him here bigtime.

Also consider: Zeus, Ancient Apparition

Lowest Death Average: You’re going to want an elusive carry for this one, but not a carry that will get frequently picked. Antimage is a popular pick, but we’re thinking he’ll be picked often enough to get involved in a handful of flops that will kill his chances of winning this category. Look for a less-picked carry like Phantom Lancer to take this one.

Also consider: Morphling, Antimage

Hero with Highest Last Hit Average: The most logical pick here is Antimage because of his hard-farming ways but the concerns that kept him from being the pick in the last category open the door for other gold-loving pocket picks to steal this category.

Also consider: Medusa, Terrorblade

Hero with Highest XPM Average: Meepo is designed to get obscene amounts of experience, and he should be able to run away with this category. The only concern is if he doesn’t get picked enough to qualify…

Also consider: None

Hero with Most Kills in a Game: This one’s a crap shoot because any fighting-focused hero could hypothetically break off a 30-kill game and that’s that! Slark is our pick here, but once again, there are lots of other options out there.

Also consider: Queen of Pain, Outworld Devourer, Templar Assassin


Hero with Most Last Hits in a Game: This is a two-horse race between Antimage and Naga Siren. Antimage is our official pick, though, since he’ll be a significantly more popular pick, giving him more opportunities to get completely out of control.

Also consider: Naga Siren

Team Predictions

Which Team Will Win?: Man, there is a competitive field of teams at TI7, and there is valid cause to pick a number of them. Evil Geniuses is the team marked down in my compendium, but I wouldn’t fight you if you disagreed!

Also consider: Team Liquid, Virtus.Pro, OG

Team With Most Kills in a Game: There’s a degree of randomness here, based on the fact that it’s most kills in a *single* game. But when it comes to getting kills Virtus.Pro does it better than anybody else.

Also consider: Team Liquid, Cloud9

Team With Highest Kill Average: Once again, Virtus.Pro is a vicious team and they’re one of the best on the planet. Their aggressive play style and winning ways will carry them to victory in this category, if not the entire tournament.

Also consider: None

Team With Fewest Deaths in a Game: Once again, this is a one-game category so anybody could hypothetically force out a 17-minute “gg” call with just two or three deaths to their record. The best bet would be a team that has a strong laning phase and a willingness to go for the throat early. Evil Geniuses fits that bill.

Also consider: OG, Virtus.Pro, Team Liquid

Team With Most Assists in a Game: Another single game category! Hedge your bets by looking for a team that isn’t afraid to fight, but tends to play slowly. Cloud9 fits that bill perfectly.

Also consider: Evil Geniuses, OG, Fnatic

Team That Wins the Longest Game: Logically speaking, you want a team similar to the last one. A team that is willing to play like a boa constrictor, rather than a wolf. That said, my pick is Evil Geniuses. They’re a team that is capable of playing a long game, but also one that is capable of keeping itself alive for tens of minutes before pulling off a seemingly inconceivable comeback.

Also consider: Cloud9, OG, Invictus Gaming

Team That Wins the Shortest Game: Virtus.Pro is very good at Dota 2, and is willing to go for the throat of its opponents very early. Once again, there’s no such thing as a slam dunk in a single-game category. But this is about as close as it gets.

Also consider: None

Team With Highest Game Length Average: We’ve mentioned Cloud9 in a couple of the categories that hinge on game length. And, well, that’s not a coincidence! The former Team NP showed in the qualifiers that they’re willing to take it slow when it comes to sealing a victory and that makes them a strong pick here.

Also consider: OG, Team Secret, LGD Gaming

Team That Picks the Most Different Heroes: None of the teams at TI7 have a shallow hero pool, and the meta seems to afford captains a lot of room for creativity. This year, this category is basically a matter of picking a team that can reliably go far in the tournament. And given how the pick to win is Evil Geniuses...

Also consider: Virtus.Pro

Team That Picks the Fewest Different Heroes: Similarly, this category isn’t so much about which teams have the biggest hero pools, it’s about which teams will exit right after that “minimum 10 game” mark. I’m going with LGD Gaming but basically any good-but-not-great team will do.

Also consider: Digital Chaos, LGD.Forever Young, Team Empire

 

Player Predictions

Player With the Highest Kill Average: SumaiL is really, really good at Dota 2. He’s operating on another level, even from the rest of the pro scene and that is going to result in his name appearing a lot on this article.

Also consider: None

Player With the Most Kills in a Game: Basically any carry or mid on any high-end squad could end up taking this category. Instead of once again picking SumaiL, though, I’m taking Invictus Gaming’s Op.

Also consider: SumaiL, QO

Player With the Lowest Death Average: This one is impossible to reliably guess because The International always sees its own unique meta form during the tournament. The best bet is an offlaner or carry for a strong, high-octane teams that can end games early. Ramzes666 fits the bill here...but so do plenty of others.

Also consider: Burning, UNiVeRsE

Player With the Highest Assist Average: You’re going to want a No. 4 player for a top-tier team that will win often, but not win too early to rack up assists! OG is a good fit in that way, and their No. 4 player is JerAx.

Also consider: YapzOr, Zai, Febby

Player With the Most Assists in a Game: Just like with picking the hero with the most assists in a game, this one is basically drawing names out of a hat! Aui_2000 is my pick because I see Cloud9 going late and him being able to rack up assists as a result. But boy, there are loads of options here.

Also consider: Basically everyone

Player With the Highest Last Hit Average: The extra creep that spawns in each mid lane wave skews things away from traditional carries. There’s a lot of love being sent in Burning’s direction for this one, and it makes sense! For me, though, SumaiL is back on the menu! He’s the best player on, possibly, the best team, and that will give him lots of opportunities to farm.

Also consider: Burning, ana, Miracle-

Player With the Most Last Hits in a Game: You’ll want to pick a carry for a team that can be relied upon to go late. For me, this is a three-horse race between Arteezy, n0tail and EternaLEnVy. Arteezy gets the nod, though.

Also consider: EternaLEnVy, n0tail

Player With the Most GPM in a Game: A mid player is going to take Alchemist, start snowballing and go bananas en route to over 1,000 GPM. We’ll take SumaiL here, too!

Also consider: ana

Player With the Highest GPM Average: You want to pick the carry for a team that will go deep into TI7 and is willing to take its time getting there. Arteezy is the pick here, but there are strong alternatives over on OG and Liquid as well.

Also consider: Matumbaman, n0tail

Player That Plays the Most Different Heroes: Virtus.Pro won The Summit 7 and came very close to doing so without picking the same hero twice. The number of viable supports, offlaners and carries will thin out during TI7 and VP will likely respect that...but their mid player, No[o]one, will still have plenty of heroes to choose from.

Also consider: lil

Tournament Predictions

Total Number of Games Played: It’s a competitive group of teams at TI this year, and I’m expecting the brackets to reflect that with the majority of series going to three games, resulting in 50 to 54 games played.

Also consider: 45 to 49

Total Number of Heroes Picked: Nearly every hero was picked last year and this year will be more of the same. 101+ is the pick here, fairly confidently.

Also consider: 91 to 100

Total Number of Heroes Banned: Once again, there’s a vast pool of viable heroes and that should result in lots and lots of them getting banned. Generally speaking, the number banned tends to be a tick or two beneath the number picked, making 81 to 90 a solid choice...but it could be slightly less.

Also consider: 71 to 80

Most Combined Total Kills in a Game: We’re going to see some long, ugly bloodbaths at TI7. That will result in a few games with a kill total approaching 100. 91 to 100 is the pick, though it could be slightly more, or slightly less.

Also consider: 101 to 110, 81 to 90

Longest Game of the Tournament: I’m going with 80:00 to 89:59 but I could see longer games...maybe even significantly longer games. There are plenty of teams willing to take their time and we’re generally seeing players become less and less willing to throw in the towel.

Also consider: 90:00 to 99:59, 100:00+

Shortest Game of the Tournament: Counter to that, we can also see a lot of games end early. Barracks getting toppled in under 20 minutes is relatively common these days and, as such, we’ll see a team wave the white flag in the 15:00 to 19:59 range. No earlier. No later.

Also consider: None

Most Kills by a Hero in a Game: Experts are all over the place with their picks for this category, and it largely hinges on how long they’re expecting games to go. I’ll go for the maximum of 26+, though. I think we’ll see some very long games which will eventually let a player get to this total, or very close to it.

Also consider: 23 to 25, 20 to 22

Most Deaths by a Hero in a Game: For whatever reason, the “most deaths by a hero in a game” category has hovered in the 14 to 18 range for basically every major Dota 2 tournament. 15 to 17 is the best pick here, though its neighbors are viable as well.

Also consider: 12 to 14, 18 to 20

Most Assists in a Game: Once again, the expert picks are all over the place with this one and once again, we’re dialing it up to the max! 36+ is the pick here.

Also consider: 28 to 31, 32 to 35

Highest GPM by a Hero in a Game: This is one of the few no-brainers on this section. It’s 1,000+. Once again, at some point, an Alchemist is going to get out of control and settle in up over 1,000 GPM. It’s just short of being guaranteed.

Also consider: None